Draft:List of petitions calling for Israel to be banned from sports

Demanding that Israel be banned from international sports have been in the works for years and have grown louder due to the Israel–Hamas war. While Russia has been sanctioned for its illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory, Israel's occupation of Palestine for more than 75 years has never led to a ban. Those oppose to Israel's ban argue that politics should not interfere in sports. IOC has rejected calls for banning Israel, stating that the Israel–Hamas war cannot be compared to other wars.

Background
International sanctions have been an effective method of punishing those who violate international laws since 1972, when the South African team was banned from the Olympic Games for twenty-three years. In 2014, the European Union passed sanctions against Russia after it illegally annexed Ukraine's territory. Many calls for Israel to be banned from international sports make reference to the sport bans resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Referring to FIFA's suspending of Russia and South Africa during apartheid, Jibril Rajoub, the head of the Palestinian Football Association and the Palestine Olympic Committee said that more than 250 Palestinian athletes, most of them soccer players, have been killed in Gaza and several soccer stadiums have been destroyed. He said that the presence of six teams from Israeli settlements was a clear violation of FIFA regulations.

West Asian Football Federation
In February 2024, the twelve-member West Asian Football Federation sent an open letter to FIFA, all of its national member associations, and the sport's six regional confederations imploring them to take a "decisive stand against the atrocities committed in Palestine and the war crimes in Gaza, by condemning the killing of innocent civilians [...] and the destruction of the football infrastructure [by] taking a united front in isolating the Israeli Football Association from all football-related activities until these acts of aggression cease." The federation's president, Prince Ali bin Hussein, also wrote to EU members and Britain's native countries imploring their engagement.

BDS
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) is a movement launched in 2005 to call on people to pressure governments to meet their obligations under international law to end apartheid Israel by imposing sanctions. In 2012 and again in 2016, BDS called for an Olympic ban, and accused FIFA in 2023 of consistently ignoring calls to respect Palestinian rights. They also alleged that FIFA had "actively shielded Israel from accountability for its ongoing war crimes and violations of FIFA's own statutes through its inclusion of teams in illegal Israeli settlements on stolen Palestinian land," even going "so far as to sanction not the illegal settlement clubs but fan clubs expressing support for Palestinian human rights."

4Sports Kuwait
In 2024, more than 23,560 people signed an online petition asking FIFA to ban Israel in response to the alleged killing of Palestinian footballers by Israeli forces and the destruction of sports venues in Gaza. The petition, created by 4Sports Kuwait, lists Israel's alleged sports violations in Gaza during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

DiEM25
In January 2024, Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25) launched a petition calling for suspension of Israel from world sport "until it fully complies with international law and sports regulations," alleging that multiple sports organisations, including the International Olympic Committee, FIFA, UEFA, and FIBA were "complicit as they allow a continuous participation of the occupying apartheid regime in their events." One of the petition's co-organizers, Katrina Pijtelovic, decried the double standards of FIFA and other international bodies in punishing Russia for killing Ukrainian civilians and remaining silent about Israel's actions.

Jordan Football Association
On New Year's Eve 2023, after videos were released showing Israeli soldiers turning Yarmouk Stadium into a Palestinian detention camp surrounded by armed soldiers and tanks in which many women, men, and children were gathered, blindfolded or covered in underwear, the Jordan Football Association (JFA) issued a declaration demanding that international sports associations take "decisive action to stop the aggression against Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied territories" by calling for severe sanctions against Israel's sports associations in an effort to isolate the regime. This includes banning Israeli sports from world championships "until the occupying state complies with international ceasefire demands".

"If taking over sports facilities are a red line, why silence as Israel converts Gaza's historic Yarmouk football stadium into an internment camp? The inconsistencies are glaring, to say the least." Said Jules Boykoff, the author of the book What Are the Olympics For?.

PFA
The Palestinian Football Association or PFA has called on FIFA to expel the Israel Football Association (IFA) amid the ongoing war in Israel and Gaza. The PFA say they want to address the unprecedented international human rights and humanitarian law violations committed by Israel and have called on FIFA to pressure the IFA to address discrimination and racism in its league and recognize the breach of federation rules.

The Palestine Football Association (PFA) also sent letters to IOC and FIFA calling for an "urgent international probe into occupation crimes against sports and athletes in Palestine". At the FIFA Congress in Bangkok, Palestine Football Association (PFA) President Jibril Rajoub alleged that Israel had violated multiple FIFA statutes, including over the Gaza conflict and the inclusion in Israeli leagues of teams located in Palestinian territory, and called on the World Football Organization to suspend Israel and ban Israeli teams from FIFA events. He had previously called for FIFA to expel Israel in 2015, after they restricted the movement of Palestinian players and players in clubs in West Bank, though withdrew the call after heavy pressure.

Palestinian sport clubs
Three hundred Palestinian sports clubs asked the International Olympic Committee to exclude Israel from the Olympics Games. In January 2024, Palestinian sports and youth clubs called for Israel's exclusion as part of a wider boycott campaign. The open letter signed by thirty-two organizations called on the International Olympic Committee to ban Israel for violating its principles.

Irish Sports for Palestine
Hundreds of Irish athletes signed an open letter calling for a ban on Israeli sport. Shortly afterwards, six Irish basketballers boycotted a women's tournament match against Israel in early 2024, while at a subsequent EuroBasket 2025 qualifier, those players that did play the match declined to shake hands with the Israeli team.

Artists (Art Not Genocide Alliance)
Thousands of artists, curators and creative professionals signed an open letter that called out the "ongoing atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza", and called on the Venice Biennale to ban "any official representation of Israel" at that event. The letter, released on 26 February 2024 by the activist group Art Not Genocide Alliance, was signed by more than 17,000 signatories including the photographer Nan Goldin, the Turner Prize winner Jesse Darling, and representatives for Albania, Cyprus, Finland, Iceland, Lithuania, Nigeria and Zimbabwe at that year's Biennale. In the global art world, many artists worry that speaking out in favor of a ceasefire could negatively affect their careers. An open letter about the war published in Artforum magazine in October led to the dismissal of its editor.

Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel called on IOC, FIFA, and several other sporting bodies to exclude the country over its human rights record.

French politicians
A group of French politicians, have asked the International Olympic Committee to ban Israeli athletes representing the country in the summer games. A group of left-wing politicians in France called on International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach in February 2024 to exclude Israel from the upcoming games.

French lawmakers, belonging to three left-wing parties
Twenty-six French lawmakers, belonging to three left-wing parties, signed a petition sent to International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach calling for sanctions against Israel at the 2024 Summer Olympics after the regime's "war crime" in Gaza. The same lawmakers want Israeli athletes to compete in the games without state symbols — the Israeli flag and national anthem — and compete impartially, just as Russian and Belarusian athletes competed at the Tokyo Olympics.

Public figures
Notable figures, including Ken Loach, Bob Russell, Ahdaf Soueif and the late John Berger wrote an open letter urging FIFA to suspend the IFA. In a larger sporting boycott, in 2012 footballers condemned Israel's plans to host the UEFA Under-21 Championship in Israel, and Norwegian national team coach Egil Olsen supported an academic and cultural boycott of Israel. Former professional soccer player Gary Lineker called on FIFA and the International Olympic Committee to join a global boycott of Israel, angering Conservative lawmakers and an anti-Semitic watchdog in the UK. Ken McCue, a member of the Irish group Insaka-Ireland, was quoted in an article in The Nation as saying that some Irish sportspeople were considering mounting their own call for Israel to banned from the Olympics, on the grounds that the IOC had previously instituted similar bans on Russia and South Africa. The Spanish politician Josep Borrell has also stated that there was no reason to not impose sanctions on the Israeli regime to hold it accountable for its numerous violations of international law.

Reactions
Both FIFA and IOC have refused to condemn the ongoing Israel–Hamas war and the resulting humanitarian crisis, with an IOC spokesperson arguing in November 2023 that the situation was not comparable to any other war.

While Russia has been sanctioned for its illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory, Israel's occupation of Palestine has not led to a ban. This led to accusations of double standards. Those oppose to Israel's ban, including Israel and FIFA, argue that politics should not interfere in sports. Others say that sports sanctions can be a powerful tool for justice. According to Zara Najjar, the Jordanian national basketball player "in an ideal world, sports and politics would remain separate, allowing athletes to compete for the love of the game. However, history has shown us that sports often serve as a powerful platform for political expression and change." According to Jules Boykoff, Israel's ground war in Gaza "would be in clear violation [of the Olympic charter] in the same way as what Russia has done." Article 4 of FIFA's constitution prohibits "discrimination of any kind against a country or group of people" and stated that any violation of this obligation of non-discrimination is punishable by "suspension or expulsion".